Originally Posted by
Flubber2012
In reading flyertalk, a question occurred to me. if you are a really high-milage flyer, can you get upgrades on virtually every flight for the cost of a Y-ticket? Or, if you're only willing to pay for a Y ticket, are you sitting in Y most of the time? It doesn't seem likely to me that you could "always" be upgraded but, I guess if you spend a lot of $ on the credit cards that allow you to accrue miles, it's possible?
It depends on the airline and, as gwar69 notes, your status level. As an EXP (100K mile/year) AA flyer, I'm upgraded 98% of the time domestically and something like 75% of the time on long-haul international flights, all for free. This latter number could be ~100% if I were willing to use cash+miles to upgrade the remaining flights. AA's international (systemwide) upgrades work on all paid fares, even the dirt-cheap economy ones, which is why I can do this. Some airlines only allow more expensive Y fares to be upgraded. On the downside, if you're a lower-tier elite on AA you have to pay for some of your domestic upgrades.